Perspectives

The Connected Commons brings together business and academic thought leaders to pioneer research and explore next-generation leadership practices. Below, our members discuss how they think about and apply the network science ideas at their organizations, and how the Commons helps them achieve their goals in this domain.

Below are featured members of the Connected Commons sharing how they are exploring and applying social network analysis and science to create a more agile organization, enhance leadership that enables their talent and delivers breakthrough levels of innovation. Additional perspectives are available to members in the Member Perspectives.

Learn about how Workday leverages Connections as one the Five Factors that make up their Talent Strategy

Greg Pryor

VP, Leadership & Organization Effectiveness, Workday

Highlighted Commons Members

Hear Directly From Michael

Michael Arena Vice President of Talent Management & Development Amazon

Introduction

Applications & Advice

Learn More About Michael Arena

Current Role & Responsibilities

Michael is the Vice President of Talent Management & Development at Amazon, where he is responsible for designing and advancing the global talent practices, leadership development and learning activities, organizational effectiveness solutions and the new employee success strategies necessary to enable the growth and innovation of AWS. Michael also teaches in Penn’s Masters in Organizational Dynamics program and acts as a design thinking coach within the Stanford dSchool.

Leading the Application of Network Science

As Chief Talent Officer for General Motors Corporation, Michael and his team aggressively leveraged organizational network analysis on such topics as organizational alignment, business growth strategies, emergent innovation and collaborative overload. The most significant advancement has been in the area of Adaptive Space, which uses network theory to enable specific connections for adaptation. Most notably, the intentional use of such network roles as brokers, connectors, energizers and challengers to enhance agility. These practices are highlighted in Michael’s book, Adaptive Space: How GM and Other Companies are Positively Disrupting Themselves and Transforming into Agile Organizations.

Connected Commons Role & Research

Michael is a founding member of the Connected Commons and has contributed to the creation of research and resources. In 2017, Michael co-authored the Connected Commons research “How to Catalyze Innovation in Your Organization”, featured in the Summer edition of Sloan Management Review. He is also the author of the research on adaptation that won the 2017 Walker Prize from People + Strategy.

Previous Roles

Prior to Amazon, Michael was the Chief Talent Officer for GM. He also spent two years as a visiting scientist within MIT’s Media Lab, Human Dynamic research space and served as Senior Vice President of Leadership Development at Bank of America.

Hear Directly From Daniel

Daniel Ranta Knowledge Management Leader General Electric

Introduction

Applications & Advice

Learn More About Daniel Ranta

Current Role & Responsibilities

Dan Ranta is accountable for GE-wide vision and strategy for Knowledge Sharing (KS) implementation that builds on work being done in other businesses across GE with a focus on connecting people, both internal and external, to leverage our collective GE expertise.

Leading the Application of Network Science

At GE, Dan works to strengthen the company-wide KM Strategy that was first implemented in early 2016. In two years, Dan’s team have worked with business leader to design and launch 140+ global communities for engineering staff across GE businesses (about 120,000 total members). Network science is implicit in all this work since the team is focused on supporting tacit knowledge exchanges for GE’s engineering workforce. This is the foundation of GE’s collaboration approach – working within and across businesses to connect employees and drive business value.

Connected Commons Role & Research

Dan is a 2-year member of the Connected Commons and has partnered with Rob Cross for almost 20 years in ONA-related areas and projects. Dan has co-authored two significant articles with Rob in recent years, including: Investing in Boundary-Spanning Collaboration to Drive Efficiency and Innovation – September 2015.

Previous Roles

Dan has 25 years of experience in KM strategy, collaboration, content management, portal design, ONA, and measuring business results. He has worked in consulting with EY, IBM and Schlumberger. Dan also worked for 10 years as the KM Leader for ConocoPhillips during which that company was a 6-time winner of the global Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise (MAKE) award.

Learn More About Debra R. France

Current Role & Responsibilities

Debra drives leadership and innovator development for W. L. Gore & Associates, a global materials science company known for innovation and solving complex technical challenges in demanding environments, with products that include GORE-TEX® fabrics, medical devices; aerospace, pharmaceutical and mobile electronics solutions. Gore has always operated as a low-hierarchy “lattice” organization to foster innovation. The company has more than 9500 associates worldwide and is known as a team-based organization with no traditional managers, job descriptions, nor organizational charts for sixty years. The results of this approach to organizing have been prolific innovation and continuous acknowledgement as a Global Best Place to Work company.

Leading the Application of Network Science

Debra is an internal researcher and designer who has been studying the practices of Gore’s network environment and embedding the insights into design of leadership development processes and learning solutions. Gore’s unusual cultural practices were intended to facilitate connections and effective decision making among all the contributors to innovation in the enterprise. Founder Bill Gore designed the organization to be able to form and reform around emerging innovations, and ended up creating enormous capacity for adaption rather than focusing on building an organization for stability and predictability as was the norm for traditional mid-century management approaches.

Connected Commons Role & Research

Debra brought Gore to the Connected Commons in 2017 and has participated on panels and webinars. Her associate Willis Jensen is helping Gore is conduct its first ONA studies.

Previous Roles

Before joining Gore, Debra led Training and Development for Barnes and Noble; Management and Executive Development for Dell Computer; and Learning and Development for SEMATECH, the semiconductor manufacturing research consortium. She is a frequent speaker on leadership and organizational practices for innovation, especially in networked organizations and on how other companies can apply Gore’s cultural practices to foster innovation and to meet organizational challenges in the unfolding future of work.

Hear Directly From Julie

Julie Lodge-Jarret Chief Talent Officer Ford Motor Company

Introduction

Applications & Advice

Learn More About Julie Lodge-Jarret

Current Role & Responsibilities

Julie leads the newly formed Global Talent organization within Ford Motor Company. Ford is a Fortune 10 company, manufacturing cars and trucks around the world since 1903. With over $156B in revenue and 200,000 employees – Ford’s talent needs are complex and ever changing. Julie’s role includes Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, Talent Analytics, Diversity & Inclusion, Culture and Organization Development. She and her team lead the end-to-end processes that attract, develop and retain talent across the company.

Leading the Application of Network Science

Over the last decade, Ford’s business has become increasingly global and cross-functional, connectivity is increasing and teamwork is critical. Being collegial is key to business success, however the risks of collaborative overload are very real! Julie and her team are using the Connected Commons research, materials and analytics to facilitate executive development programs and provide individual coaching.

She has also used ONA to better inform organizational and individual strengths as well as opportunities to further foster networks across teams and geographic boundaries.

Connected Commons Role & Research

Julie is an active member of Connected Commons, attending various member events and joining panel discussions to share her application at Ford. She’s leveraged her network within CC to learn more about the various resources, and is currently partnering with Rob Cross and team on a number of potential research and case study possibilities – most notably in assessing Collaborative Overload as part of team effectiveness and testing the use of network analysis to better inform organization design and culture transformation.

Previous Roles

Julie has served in a broad range of generalist roles at Ford – most recently from Chief Learning Officer… to VP, Greater China HR… to Director, AP HR Business Operation… to National Negotiator with the UAW. She serves a Board Chair of a non-profit organization in Detroit, and her most precious roles are being a mom to 2 teenagers and a partner in life with her husband!

Hear Directly From Annie

Annie McCallum Head of Executive Development and Careers Associated British Foods

Introduction

Applications & Advice

Learn More About Annie McCallum

Current Role & Responsibilities

Annie is Head of Executive Development, Careers at Associated British Foods (ABF) and is based in London. ABF is a diversified international food, ingredients and retail group, with sales of £15.4bn, 133,000 employees, and operations in 50 countries across Europe, southern Africa, the Americas, Asia and Australia. Annie’s role is to make it easy for people to navigate their careers across ABF through a variety of online tools, training and smart use of networks.

Leading the Application of Network Science

Having mapped senior networks across ABF twice in the last five years, Annie uses the data in two ways: firstly, she helps business leaders to identify opportunities for stronger networks to support learning, sharing of expertise and innovation in pursuit of commercial success, cost reduction & organisational efficiency. Secondly, Annie helps people to use networks in a purposeful way to support their personal and professional development.

Connected Commons Role & Research

Annie is an enthusiastic supporter of the Connected Commons and has contributed in the past by joining a panel to present on programs designed and executed in ABF on the subject of energising networks. ABF also provided interviewees for Rob to support his efforts to understand the characteristics of networks at different organisational levels. In addition, Annie and ABF have contributed material to support the creation of a new networks learning module for use by students at Babson college.

Previous Roles

Annie was International Talent Director at Twinings (who make excellent tea) before moving to her current role at ABF. Prior to that, she was VP Global Human Resources at PrecisionIR, where they specialize in web-based communications, and an International HR Director at Bombardier (who make planes and trains).

Learn More About Chris Masterson

Current Role & Responsibilities

Chris is the Senior Vice President of Quality at Ipsen, a global, patient-based biopharmaceutical company based in Paris, FR. Ipsen is a mid-sized, innovative, rapidly growing biopharmaceutical company with excellent revenue growth, well beyond that of its biopharma peers and in the midst of a transformation. Chris (recently moved from the UK back to the US) is responsible for leading a global Quality organization of approximately 400 talented individuals responsible for assuring the quality of Ipsen products, processes and services. Chris is a microbiologist by education, but defines himself by his leadership and transformational improvement abilities.

Leading the Application of Network Science

Chris is not a HR or IT professional, but a pharmaceutical executive leading an operational function; hence, he has a unique perspective on leading the application of network sciences. Chris became involved with Connected Commons through an Ipsen executive conference in France, with Rob Cross as a speaker. Chris saw the benefit of using this innovative networking approach and took the lead at Ipsen for applying this approach in a business-focused, piloted way. Chris is a natural leader, facilitator and networker, focused on building bridges across functions to improve cross-functional work processes. With the help of Jean Singer and Sally Colella, Ipsen is building a Best In Class GXP Inspection Readiness process to assure successful global health authority inspections of its many biopharmaceutical manufacturing sites.

Connected Commons Role & Research

Chris has been a member of Connected Commons for a couple years, providing a unique operational perspective to the group. His work in developing a Best In Class GXP Inspection Readiness process is a great example of how to use network science to solve real business problems.

Previous Roles

Before joining Ipsen, Chris served as the Vice President of Quality for Cubist (now Merck). Prior to that, Chris worked for Shire, Biogen, Genzyme, Abbott, Astra Zeneca and others in technical and quality leadership roles. Chris has worked in the biopharmaceutical industry for his entire >25 year career in increasingly senior leadership roles.